


standing in a circular line

by notquiteaghost



Series: the circle never breaks [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternative Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-15
Updated: 2013-03-15
Packaged: 2017-12-05 07:53:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/720651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notquiteaghost/pseuds/notquiteaghost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>This time around (number five, not that he's counting), there are no revolutions, world wars or god knows what else. This time, he's not going to die young, and he's not going to die alone, and he's going to find Grantaire, and he's going to make him damn well remember, even if it kills him.</em>
</p><p>In which Enjolras remembers everything, and Grantaire remembers nothing, and their lives are a record that won't stop skipping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	standing in a circular line

i.  
"Grantaire!"

Enjolras can barely here himself think. He can barely breathe. There's too many people, too much gunfire, they're never going to make it out, not this time, they haven't got a hope in Hell. Of course they're going to die, because Enjolras only just found him again. Of course they're going to die. That's what always happens.

" _Grantaire_!" Enjolras shouts again. Grantaire looks up, and there's panic written all over his face. He shouts something back, but Enjolras can't hear it, he's too far away, there's too many people in between them, too much gunfire, shit those are shells-

They're going to die in a muddy trench fighting someone else's war. Enjolras has known Grantaire for all of three months, and now he's going to watch him die.

He is so fucking sick of this.

There's an explosion, so close it makes the ground shake, and Enjolras is still pushing his way down the line, trying to get to Grantaire, trying to get there in time, and it's not working. He's not going to make it.

He's going to die. They're going to die.

He trips over something, someone, he's not going to look down and see what, not after the last time, and he stumbles forward, and something explodes. He's only a few feet away from Grantaire, almost close enough to touch, and something explodes. The whole world explodes, and everything goes dark, and Enjolras-

 

ii.  
Enjolras jerks awake.

His room's still dark, the moonlight seeping in between the curtains casting strange shadows across the walls. He blinks, breathes, reminds himself the First World War has been over and done with for almost a hundred years now. Blinks, breathes, runs a hand through his hair, thinks very hard about the class he's meant to attend at seven AM. Not about Grantaire dying, not about Grantaire dead.

That's not going to happen.

This time around (number five, not that he's counting), there are no revolutions, world wars or God knows what else. This time, he's not going to die young, and he's not going to die alone, and he's going to find Grantaire, and he's going to make him damn well remember, even if it kills him.

He knows it. He can feel it.

 

iii.  
He doesn't go to the seven AM class. He didn't get nearly enough sleep, and his next class is at midday, so he can get up at half six or he can get up at eleven. It's not a hard choice to make.

At quarter past ten, his phone rings. He blinks awake blearily, gropes for his phone and presses it to his ear.

"Yeah?" He says.

"You okay?" Courfeyrac asks. "You weren't in class. You're not getting sick, are you?"

"Couldn't sleep." Enjolras says, sitting up and rubbing a hand across his face. "Figured there wasn't much point in going to class if all I was going to do was nap through it."

"Fair enough." Courfeyrac says. He sounds cautious, and like he's trying to hide it, and Enjolras hates it. He hates feeling like everyone's walking on eggshells around him, but, apparently, it's unavoidable. "Want to talk about it?"

"Dreams. You know what they're like."

Courfeyrac hums an affirmative. "You're up now, right?" He doesn't give him time to answer. "Of course you are. Come to the cafe with me?"

"I'll be there in twenty."

 

iv.  
A list of unique problems within Enjolras, caused by two hundred years of reincarnation:

1\. Insomnia.

2\. A guilt complex of Messiah proportions.

3\. Memory overload.

4\. Severe self-destructive tendencies.

5\. Insomnia.

6\. Occasional time-period-related dysphoria.

7\. Officially (if slightly incorrectly) diagnosed clinical depression.

8\. A predisposition towards self-loathing.

9\. Insomnia.

10\. Dissociative tendencies. 

11\. The ability to grieve for people he's yet to meet.

12\. He mentioned the insomnia, right?

 

v.  
Courfeyrac, by virtue of living across the road, is already at the Musain when Enjolras gets there, sitting at a table in one corner with two cups of coffee and two toasted sandwiches, because Courfeyrac is a god amongst men.

When Enjolras tells him as much, he just grins and ducks his head.

"So, Jehan thinks he's found Grantaire." Courfeyrac says, once they've gotten through the pleasantries ('How's your beloved poet?' 'How's your beloved books?').

Enjolras almost chokes on his coffee. "Say that again, slowly and clearly, because you can't have said what I thought you said."

"Jehan thinks he's found Grantaire." Courfeyrac repeats. "And, come on, it makes sense. You've said it yourself, this is the first time it's been all of us."

"Yes, but it's been almost a hundred years, Courf." Enjolras says, staring at the table so he doesn't have to look at the expression on Courfeyrac's face. "Anything could have happened."

"Jehan's really sure it's him." Courfeyrac says. "Like, swear on my life kind of deal. He's an artist, he's got work on display in that gallery Jehan likes so much, and he paints like Grantaire, E. You know?"

"I..." Enjolras trails off. Then swallows, blinks, and starts again. "I want to see the stuff in the gallery. Then we'll try and track him down. Okay?"

"Okay." Courfeyrac agrees, easily. Enjolras really does love him sometimes. "Now, about this stupid Philosophy essay..."

 

vi.  
Enjolras is eight years old.

It's the fifth time this has happened; being eight. He knows this in a detached sort of way, the same way he knows that people die and that Batman isn't actually real. That way he can never explain to anyone.

He tries, at one point, to explain to his mother about the dreams he has, the things he half-knows, the memories that drop into his brain fully-formed yet still recalled as if through a fog. The people he has known, will know, always knows, linked to them so strongly even death can't keep them apart.

She takes him to a child psychiatrist. They can't find anything wrong, because in the week it took to book the appointment, Enjolras learnt a couple of things about what to keep quite about.

 

vii.  
It's Gavroche that goes to the gallery with Enjolras.

Gavroche is, other than Enjolras and Grantaire, the only other member of their motley crew to make all five turns of the merry-go-round. He hasn't changed very much at all, though Enjolras supposes that's to be expected; that's the nature of Gavroche.

His presence is comforting. He's the only person who gets what it feels like to literally be holding more memories than you have space for, the way it suffocates you until you lose yourself, forget yourself, wander so far into yourself you can hardly find your way back out.

"I miss France." Gavroche says, as they step into the gallery.

"France killed you." Enjolras points out. Gavroche flashes him a grin.

"Yeah, and it still loved me best."

Enjolras rolls his eyes, but he knows what Gavroche means. At this point, he's lived a lifetime (or tried to) in four different countries, but French always comes easiest. France always, no matter what, feels like home.

The gallery isn't very busy - it's a week or so after this particular show opened, so all of the important people have, in theory, already been and gone. It's maybe a quarter full of the general public, who have apparently been pulled in by the art alone.

Enjolras can see why.

He can also, as much as he hates himself for it, see why Jehan is so adamant this is Grantaire. The paintings are abstract, unforgiving, harsh lines and bold colour and so very Grantaire. Enjolras swallows around the sudden lump in his throat and very determinedly doesn't think about Grantaire's charcoal-smudged fingers wrapped around the barrel of a gun, or the doodles of the adventures of the trench rats ("They're the real victors here. They deserve to be celebrated."), or the sketchbook filled with page after page of explosions and corpses and Enjolras that he kept hidden in the lining of his coat-

"That one, look." Gavroche says, breaking Enjolras out of his dangerous train of thought and pointing at a particularly large canvas in one corner.

i.  
There's paint on the ceiling.

Grantaire isn't sure how that happened. It happens a lot, and he never knows how he manages it. In his opinion, he isn't a very energetic painter. But Cosette has said that he's legitimately terrifying, so maybe his opinion isn't very reliable.

The canvas in front of him is covered in paint too, but that's okay, he was aiming for the canvas.

It's a big canvas, for him. As with most of his paintings, he doesn't know what he's trying to do until he's done it, chasing half-forgotten memories and half-remembered dreams with the stroke of a brush and the swirling of colour.

This particular painting is of a man, or the abstract representation of a man (Cosette assures him that, sometimes, the shapes his lines create that he thinks are obvious can be seen be almost no one else), with a halo of blonde hair and a blood red jacket and a blood red flag in hand, standing on top of a pile of wood. He's near glowing with radiance, bright and unbelievable and borderline God-like.

He's also the subject of almost half of Grantaire's paintings and more than two thirds of his dreams. Grantaire has nicknamed him 'Apollo'.

Grantaire stares at the painting for a moment longer, decides it achieves the effect he was going for (which, he has just realised, was obviously a feeling of awe and respect), mentally adds it to the list of pieces for the gallery showing Marius is bullying him into doing, sets it down to the side, and reaches for a blank canvas and a clean brush.

Rinse and repeat.

viii.  
"E, that's you." Gavrouche says, almost imperceptibly breathless. "That's you, on the barricade." 

"...Fuck." Enjolras says.

Because that is. That's him. Viewed through the rose-tinted lens that is Grantaire's opinion of him, maybe, but it's definitely him.

"Do you think that means he remembers?" 

Gavroche shrugs. "Probably not like we do. He's probably getting dreams, brief flashes, vague feelings of deja vu. You know, like Eponine did in Chicago."

"We can get hold of his email address, right?" Enjolras asks.

He's not looking at Gavroche, though. He's been distracted by the painting down the wall from him-on-the-barricade (official title ' _Give Me Liberty (I do not see why you need a second option)_ '), which is a perfect reproduction of this one sketch Grantaire did in the trenches, one of only three or four drawings he put any amount of time into. It's of Enjolras, one hand loosely holding a rifle and the other resting on Combeferre's shoulder, laughing at something. It's one of the few memories he cherishes, because it's one of the few truly happy, no-strings-attached memories he has.

"Yeah, we can." Gavroche says, his tone suggesting that the way they'll get his email isn't entirely legal, but Enjolras has always been willing to bend the rules for Grantaire's sake, and anyway, he isn't actually listening. He's too busy staring at the painting.

 

ix.  
_Grantaire,_

_So, there's no way this isn't going to come across as creepy. Apologies in advance._

_But, um, I saw your work at the gallery, and I'd like to meet you in person. Over coffee or something, I don't mind._

_I promise I'm not going to kill you, or kidnap you, or steal a lock of your hair to sleep with, or anything like that. My intentions are pure, I swear._

_Yours hopefully-not-too-creepily,  
Enjolras_

ii.  
"...Reincarnation." Grantaire says in a small voice. Fuck, but that explains so much.

"1832, 1886, 1915, 1983, and now." Enjolras says, smiling bitterly. Grantaire kind of wants to kiss that look off his face. "There are others, too. People, I mean. We were French revolutionaries, the first time. Still yet to figure out why the universe has been so reluctant to let us go."

"You were wearing a red jacket." Grantaire says, wonderingly. "You looked so powerful, like you could do anything, even though you were cornered. Even though there was no hope left. You were going to die, so I wanted to die too. Stupidest way of confessing my feelings I could have found, thinking about it."

"I don't blame you." Enjolras says immediately. "I mean, maybe I did then. I liked you, I really did, but it was mostly in spite of you, instead of because of you. What you were doing to yourself, contrasted to what you could have been if only you'd let yourself... It made me so angry. The anger was what I let you see." He smiles again, not quite as bitter, ducks his head and stares at the table. "We were both stupid, really."

"Got it right this time." Grantaire points out, grinning when Enjolras looks up hopefully. "And it only took us, what, two hundred years?"

"Better late than never." Enjolras replies, a genuinely happy smile spreading across his face. Grantaire can feel his own grin widening in response.

"So," He says, reaching across the table and threading his fingers through Enjolras', because he's allowed, that's something he can do, and Jesus he's not going to get over that for a while, "How's the 21st century been treating you?"

x.  
Enjolras is on fire, his lungs are on fire, it burns, he's burning, something's burning and he can't breathe and Jesus fucking Christ it hurts it hurts _it hurts_ \- 

He jerks awake, sitting bolt upright and staring at the window.

"Nngh?" Grantaire groans as he sits up beside him. "E, you alright?"

Enjolras takes a deep breath, and another, and another, and another. Breathing's one of those things, when you don't know how good it is until it's gone. He runs a hand through his hair and grimaces.

"Dream." He says, sighing. "...Nightmare, make that nightmare. Why do I always dream about dying, R?"

"Because your subconscious hates you." Grantaire tells him plainly, then paws at his shoulder until he lays back down. "You're alive now, though. You're alive, and I'm here, and we're both safe, and we get to change the world. We're going to change the world."

Enjolras doesn't reply, just buries his face in the curve of Grantaire's neck and lets him be comforting. Slowly, gradually, he falls back asleep like that - Grantaire's fingers running gently through his hair, Grantaire's voice whispering quiet tales about something or other, Grantaire's chest rising and falling in time with his breathing, Grantaire's pulse thudding in his ears - and if he dreams, it's of sunshine and happiness and Grantaire's rumbling laughter.

**Author's Note:**

> the name of grantaire's painting of enjolras is inspired by [this](http://lesmiserableworld.tumblr.com/post/43510791102). 
> 
> title's from 'rock, paper, scissors' by ani difranco.
> 
> i am [here](http://notquiteaghost.tumblr.com) on tumblr. if you liked this fic, please [click my pokefarm eggs](http://pokefarm.com/user/notquiteaghost).


End file.
